On the edge of a room decorated with “Brown Power” flags and papel picado, Reyna hands out flyers to a crowd that fills a makeshift lecture hall in Gilroy and listens as a speaker warns of the return of Donald Trump to the White House and outlines a dizzying series of steps to prepare them for the threat of deportation.
Reyna, who asked that her last name not be used due to her immigration status, is an undocumented immigrant and became a single mother of two U.S.-born young daughters three years ago after her husband died. Now she fears being separated from her children.
“I’m the only support they have. … Since their father died, I’m the only thing that ties them together,” said Reyna in Spanish.
In the wake of Trump’s re-election, after a campaign marked with promises of mass deportation and harsh immigration crackdown, Reyna is focusing on educating herself and others. Throughout the Bay Area, many immigrant communities and immigrants rights groups are attempting to combat fear with knowledge as they prepare to fight back against the strict immigration policies and elevated racism that they believe will come with the next Trump administration.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen here,” said Morgan Hill resident Rosario Ortiz in Spanish, who says she has several undocumented family members. “Everybody is scared. Everybody is worried.”
The Bay Area is home to over 2.3 million immigrants, according to a Mercury News analysis of 2022 US Census data. Most hail from Latin America or Asia — including Mexico, China, the Philippines and Vietnam. While the Pew Research Center estimates around 4 in 5 immigrants in California have some legal status, that still leaves hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants throughout the Bay Area.
President-elect Trump has vowed that his administration will execute the “largest deportation operation in American history” and made tamping down immigration a central pillar of his campaign. His wide-ranging promises range from building massive detention camps to hold immigrants to deputizing the military to assist with deportation.
Reyna came to the United States illegally 15 years ago. Since Trump’s election, she has already designated a friend to take care of her two daughters, ages 11 and 8, should she be deported.
Community Agency for Resources, Advocacy, and Services staff member Reyna (who asked that her last name not be used due to her immigration status) talks to community members after a Know Your Rights immigration workshop at CARAS in Gilroy, Calif., on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2024. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
As part of her work helping connect immigrants to resources throughout the community in Gilroy, she said she typically received two or three calls every week from people searching for immigration lawyers. Since the election, she gets that many every day. Other organizations across the Bay Area say they are also receiving more calls seeking immigration help.
The fears go beyond just undocumented immigrants. Both Trump and Vice-President elect JD Vance have suggested scaling back or even revoking some legal avenues for immigration, leaving even some with legal status feeling in limbo.
“I have my work permit … but I don’t know if that is going to be enough,” said Colombian immigrant Sebastian Garcia in Spanish. He said he is especially concerned about his friends who are on shakier legal footing. “The truth is I’m trying to see how we (as a community) can help each other out … come January … well, I’m worried.”
Whether the worst fears of deportation will be realized in the Bay Area is up for debate. While the California legislature has limited how much local law enforcement can collaborate with immigration enforcement, federal agents can operate independently from local law enforcement to deport unauthorized immigrants.
Even though deportations peaked under Obama, Trump’s last administration took over 1,000 actions on immigration, which led to the separation of thousands of families, says Caitlin Patler, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies how immigration policy alters the lives of immigrants in the United States.
“Those actions were incredibly harmful to our communities,” said Patler, who points to Trump’s cabinet appointments as proof of his hardline approach. “I think we can expect to see all of that and worse under a second administration.
Many within immigrant communities agree, including those who lived through family separation in Trump’s first term.
Following years of legal maneuvering to hold off deportation during the Obama presidency, Maria Guadalupe Mendoza-Sanchez was deported in 2017 with her husband at the time, separating her from three of her four children. “I know (Trump)’s going to do what he said … (because) I have experienced that myself,” said Mendoza-Sanchez.
Maria Guadalupe Mendoza-Sanchez on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, in Oakland, Calif. Sanchez, a nurse at Highland Hospital was deported during the first Trump administration in 2017. She was able to return under a separate visa program about a year later. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Mendoza-Sanchez, an oncology nurse at Highland Hospital in Oakland, was able to return in 2018 through a skilled worker visa lottery.
When Trump was re-elected this year, Mendoza-Sanchez said her youngest daughter wept for hours remembering the deportation.
While she feels safe with her visa status and emphasizes that there is always space to fight back, she worries for her community and her patients who will be coping with the stress of the next Trump presidency. “There’s a lot of pain out there in the community and fear, and it’s very valid … it’s scary, it’s very, very scary,” she said.
Beyond fears of deportation, others worry that the new administration would empower hateful action and rhetoric.
During the first Trump administration, “we lived the harassment, the racism,” said Ana Mendoza, who provides services to immigrant communities in Gilroy and has undocumented family members. “It’s gonna get crazy for all of us.”
Huy Tran, Executive Director of San Jose immigrants rights group SIREN, said that following the election, the group received multiple hate calls, which included one telling a staff member — a U.S. citizen — that they should fear deportation. Others spoke of being told to “go back to where they came from.”
“The culture that (Trump) creates is one of fear, one of xenophobia, one of bullying … and that reverberates,” said Tran.
Tran said leaders and activists throughout the Bay Area and California have been preparing since May to make coordinated efforts to protect immigrant communities, using tactics refined during the first Trump administration. “California is a very important bulwark against what’s to come,” said Tran. “The good thing … is that we have experience. We’re more prepared.”
Already, communities across the bay are arming themselves with legal know-how: forming volunteer groups to monitor for ICE, connecting immigrants to lawyers, and preparing contingency plans in case of deportation. Organizations also are preparing to lobby state and local governments to enact and safeguard laws and policies that protect immigrants in California.
“We’re going to be resolute,” said Christian Arana, Vice President of Civic Power and Policy for Latino Community Foundation, a nationwide organization based in San Francisco. “There’s no choice but to fight.”
Back at the workshop, Reyna reflects on her own reasons for fighting as she keeps an eye out for her girls along the edge of the room. “We’re all human. We’re all here trying to keep moving forward and survive for our kids,” she said in Spanish. “That’s what’s important — the unity, the strength and the willingness to keep pressing on despite the adversity.”
Staff photographer Ray Chavez contributed to this report.
